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Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs

theregister.com

181–184 of 184 posts

Re: Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs

#181

Fam, what should we actually do about this? If you want to be real for a minute, we all lived through the freedom of Covid WFH. We all did dishes and billed for it. We all told ourselves 'I needed a break, it helps me think about the problem'. (And that was true, one day I was stuck on an 8 queens problem and I ran a half marathon, when I finished I had the solution) But... common everyone... we are humans. We take t…

Set your seniors to dedicate one day a week to train your juniors. Let them make topic specific schedules for inhouse training days and have those topics/schedules revised/supervised by on of the other seniors. Limit the topics to themes that improve the goals of your company. Challenge both sections of your workforce by watching how the learned stuff is implemented. Do that for a year then re-shuffle personnel and start over.

This is only a proposition if you can afford 1 day/week financially.

Edit: goes without saying, maybe, but make participation mandatory.

Re: Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you see how this topic might mirror something like some dudes just working on the Death Star, never having actually met a sith? There's been whole genocidal campaigns waged where people were just treating it as a day job.

yes? this isn't a "just following orders isnt a defence" case. Almost everyone at meta did nothing of the sort of bad stuff. There are nearly a hundred thousand people working at meta. This is a "being a part of an extremely large group of people, some entirely separate members of the group are doing bad stuff" Are there no groups you are a part of where members have done bad things? are you sure? Do you seriously bl…

> Do you seriously blame the death star technicians? The cooks at the death star canteen? I find that extremely hard to understand.

You must be working very hard to not understand that, as it's very simple. They signed up for a job on a thing called the Death Star. Its only job is to commit genocide at a planetary scale.

They are morally responsible for the consequences of their choices. We all are. Getting paid doesn't negate that. If anything, it amplifies it.

Re: Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs

#183
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> since their users are free to not look at them It's even worse when you consider that even if you were to opt out of Meta services entirely (which is not practical due to how many essential things run on e.g. whatsapp), they still build a shadow profile on you based only on data other people upload about you. So yeah, not only "just don't use it" is not a reasonable argument, it doesn't even solve anything!

> which is not practical due to how many essential things run on e.g. whatsapp Where do you live that WhatsApp is essential? I deleted my account when Facebook bought it and I don’t feel like anything of value was lost. Between messages/sms, signal, telegram, discord, I have no shortage of places to chat. WhatsApp only has value because of the network effect. Quit the platform and make your contacts find you elsewher…

I live in San Francisco and essentially everything around little kids/school lives on WhatsApp. It is supremely annoying.

Re: Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been seeing this sort of response more and more lately. :(

You will. Especially as it becomes more and more uncomfortable for people as they are forced to try to rationalize away their part in all of this. Don't think of it necessarily as a cop-out, but a sign that the person at least has either A) working empathy circuits and isn't likely the sort to focus on, or B) has at least started to see the tide is changing and has had to recalibrate their stance formerly accommodati…

Really appreciate this perspective. Thank you.
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